Citibank fraud: Puri’s father sent to police custody

A city court on Tuesday remanded Raghuraj Puri, father of Shivraj Puri who is the alleged mastermind of the R405-crore Citibank fraud, in police custody for two days.

His associate Rajendra Chand, a director at Puri senior's brokerage firm Normans Martin, has also been sent to police custody and the duo will now be produced before the same court on April 7.

Both the accused were produced in the court of chief judicial magistrate DS Yadav around 2.30 pm. Harish Malhotra, the counsel representing Citibank in the case, contended that despite repeated efforts by the police, Raghuraj Puri did not participate in the investigation and therefore his custody was very crucial to dig out some hidden facts.

The defence lawyer, however, argued that his 61-year-old client had joined the probe five times and there was nothing to recover from him.

He also pleaded that Puri be granted bail as he was a senior citizen and had a problem of fluctuating blood pressure.

Raghuraj Puri was the managing director of Normans Martin Brokers Private Limited. He and his wife Deeksha Puri had joined investigation in the multi-crore fraud after the court rejected their anticipatory bail.

According to sources, the Puri family and their associates have conducted transactions worth around R100 crore with Normans Martin while the remaining R300 crore were invested in the stock market. The police now want to recover the R100 crore by interrogating Puri's father and his aide.

“Raghuraj was not cooperating in the investigation which forced us to take him in remand. We are also taking care of his health concerns and there is nothing to worry about,” said a police official.

Last week, the Gurgaon police had filed a 5,000-page bulky chargesheet against prime accused Shivraj Puri and his associates Sanjay Gupta and Gaurav Jain.

“We want to get more information as we have to recover transaction details of their account from where the money was transferred to other accounts or investment purposes,” said Gurgaon police commissioner SS Deswal.